I totally agree with the original poster who said that, if you are up by one with less than two minutes to play, do everything you can to kill the clock. Doing anything else is taking chances. Because, as the poster said, if a team increases the lead to two, the other team could get the ball right back at midfield after winning a faceoff. Or, a team could shoot and not have a player backing up the goal. Or, a team could shoot and it gets blocked, hits the pipe, or the goalie saves it. Or, a player could lose the ball trying to drive into heavy traffic. I remember those instances that he mentioned.

Duke beat Hopkins in the Quarterfinals in 1997 in OT after Hopkins failed to try and kill the clock.

Princeton beat Maryland in the Quarterfinals in 2004 in OT after Maryland failed to try and kill the clock.


The best teams ever when it came to killing the clock were those Princeton teams of the 90's and early 2000's. Princeton almost always ran a methodical offense. However, whenever they had a small lead with two minutes or less left, they would run a methodical stall offense beautiful. They seemed so relaxed and made it look so easy. They either ran out the clock or killed loads of time so that the other team didn't have much of a chance to tie.

In fact, the best single example ever of a team killing the clock with about two minutes left was Princeton, when they played Duke in the 1997 Semifinals. Princeton made an incredible comeback late in the game, and they took an 8-7 lead. Then, when they got the ball back with about two minutes left, they just stalled and ran out the clock. People thought it was boring, but, hey, it worked!